[Back]

A. Bartsch, M. Doubkova, W. Wagner:
"ENVISAT ASAR GM Soil Moisture for applications in Africa and Australia";
Poster: Earth Observation and Water Cycle Science Symposium, Frascati, Italy; 11-18-2009 - 11-20-2009; in: "ESA Special Publications SP-674", (2009), ISBN: 978-92-9221-238-4; 6 pages.

ScanSAR systems such as ENVISATs ASAR Global
Mode allow monitoring of dynamic processes at medium
resolution (1km). Hence they are especially useful for
monitoring hydrologic processes such as soil moisture
and inundation dynamics. Within the ESA DUE Tiger
Innovator project SHARE (Soil Moisture for Hydrometeorological
Applications) an operational monitoring
scheme has been developed. As part of the Tiger initiative,
it has been implemented first over the Southern
African Development Community region (SADC).
Within one year after the release of the final version numerous
users from within Africa and all over the world
have requested the datasets for applications such as water
management (including catchment modeling), biodiversity,
habitat modeling, soil erosion, carbon fluxes etc.
A similar service has been setup for entire Australia and
satisfactorily evaluated for water resources management
purposes. In this paper we provide an overview of the
use and validation of the soil moisture products within
SHARE. Interannual variability (2005-2008) has been
assessed for all months. The range of mean monthly
soil moisture among the SADC countries was highest
for Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique and most pronounced
during the second half of the rainy season in
February and March.

http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_187544.pdf